# The Bitter Lesson by Rich Sutton

10 Hacker News commenters recommended The Bitter Lesson by Rich Sutton and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A short essay on AI that people recommend for framing current debates about scale, data and research direction, and for being widely misunderstood.

## Why people recommend it

- Relevant to current AI debates (4 comments): "Their current rhetoric is a direct extension of that perspective." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46064644)) "The mathematicians would be wise to re-read The Bitter Lesson" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49664099)) "I think "The Bitter Lesson" is relevant here" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435337))
- Often misunderstood, worth rereading (3 comments): "I'm linking the actual text of the bitter lesson because I think it's misunderstood" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48358628)) "The mathematicians would be wise to re-read The Bitter Lesson" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49664099)) "They should read the bitter lesson again." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46064609))
- Interesting, quick read (3 comments): "is significantly more interesting than watching researcher companies cosplay" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49897936)) "you may find “The Bitter Lesson” essay interesting to read" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49992765)) "neat thing called "The Bitter Lesson"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166004))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Grug Brained Developer by Carson Gross](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grug-brained-developer.md): 13 recommend
- [Choose Boring Technology by Dan McKinley](https://hackerapproved.com/p/choose-boring-technology.md): 11 recommend
- [Things You Should Never Do by Joel Spolsky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/things-you-should-never-do.md): 10 recommend
- [The Illustrated Transformer by Jay Alammar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/illustrated-transformer.md): 9 recommend
- [A Social Filesystem by Dan Abramov](https://hackerapproved.com/p/a-social-filesystem.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Bitter Lesson by Rich Sutton", https://hackerapproved.com/p/bitter-lesson/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).